And the winner is…: The winner of the Apple vs. Samsung case

Today, a decision in court on the Apple vs. Samsung case was made. If you have not been following the news at all within the past few weeks, Apple was suing Samsung for $2.5 billion. Apple implied that Samsung was infringing on Apple’s copyrights and Samsung countersued saying that Apple was stealing their property.

Today, it was decided that most of the patents that Apple says were violated, were violated, and they were awarded $1 billion. Samsung may also be hit with bans on infringing products. That information or anything related to it remains to be seen. It is clear that Apple has won and it has always been clear that Apple would win. However, is that necessarily a good thing?

There are some positives to this situation, Apple gets paid even more to it’s arsenal, it doesn’t have to worry about other companies that are infringing on their rights since the companies that are, won’t anymore because they don’t want to sued. However, because these companies can’t infringe anymore, they will have to stop and think outside the box more than they do now. As a result they might even make a product, dare I say it, better than Apple and beat Apple. This of course is a little far fetched since I think Samsung hasn’t given any thought besides ripping off others ideas and making a profit out of it, but if they think of something better before Apple does, Apple is in trouble and Apple forced them into that spot. Again, it isn’t likely, but it absolutely could happen and even if Samsung doesn’t, another company could because Apple didn’t just put Samsung in that position, they put every other smart phone company in that position. Samsung is not an entirely non-innovative company. They have done very well with TVs and they are an industry leader there. Of course, once Apple enters that field, they will not be the leader for much longer. But for now, they are a TV industry leader. They have innovated in the field extensively. The Samsung Smart TV is not a shabby product. I am worried that the innovation that they have brought to their TVs, they also will bring to their phones because they can’t copy the leader any longer. Could this make then the new leader? Only time will tell.

Of course, one must remain optimistic. Samsung did copy Apple. They violated laws they should not have. Samsung has not been innovative, just copycats that couldn’t get it quite right and they are $1 billion less and might have a ban on many of their infringing products, which they should. We must remain optimistic that Samsung will not innovate and I personally don’t think it will.

Of course, Wall Street is reacting positively to this news and Apple stock is $663.22 right now and is only expected to rise. Samsung stock declined today due to the news. I hope Samsung doesn’t innovate and Apple continues to and that this battle has forced them out of the market. Steve Jobs said before he died last year that “[he would] spend [his] last dying breath if [he needed] to, and [he would] spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong.” Apple has made a major victory against Android and its associated companies. Steve Jobs must be cheering in heaven right now, and it is with caution that I say, that I’m cheering too.